The Boy Who Never Was
by Jadiona
Summary: This story, more or less, revolves around one specific object. A prophecy ball made from Sybill Trelawney's first prophecy. Prophecy's tend to be self-fulfilling. My question? What if Voldemort had been successful in averting that prophecy? Rated M for safety.


**The Boy Who Never Was**

 **Disclaimer:** I am not J.K. Rowling and I have no ownership of Harry Potter whatsoever, except for a single set of the movies for personal usage. That's right, I don't even own a copy of the books.

 **AN:** For the record, I am not a fan of Harry Potter, I have many reasons for this... In fact I could write a thesis paper on it. I did like the first movies, up through the fourth. I found the fifth one interesting and the sixth one bearable. Then the seventh and eighth movies lost my interest completely. In the series, there were some characters I liked more than others, some parts of the plot that I found more interesting, and some of the different objects and items that intrigued me.

This story, more or less, revolves around one specific object. A prophecy ball made from Sybill Trelawney's first prophecy. This one prophecy claimed that a child would be born at the end of the seventh month that would have the power to kill Voldemort. That is a truncated version of the prophecy, but those of you who know Harry Potter, know it in full, I am sure. Prophecy's tend to be self-fulfilling, as was the case with this, because in Voldemort's effort to stop the prophecy, he actually started the events that led up to his death.

My question? What if Voldemort had been successful in averting that prophecy?

* * *

In early January of nineteen-eighty, Sybill was sipping tea with Dumbledore in a back room of Hog's Head Inn after Dumbledore had traveled from Hogwarts to see the graduate and former student of the House of Ravenclaw.

She was trying to acquire the position of the Divination Professor, but Dumbledore was planning on turning her down as he had already decided to do away with the study at school.

For those who were unaware, Sybill's great great grandmother on her father's side had excelled at divination. Cassandra Trelawney had been one of the best seers that the wizarding world had ever seen, and had been truly gifted in the art. Dumbledore was aware of all of this and was disappointed by the lack of skill that Sybill seemed to have. The truth of the matter was that Sybill wasn't without skill. It was more that she was at the cusp of her power, often reaching out and touching it only to have it slip through her fingers much like the sands of time.

As Dumbledore prepared to turn her down and leave, Sybill fell into a deep trance and predicted the birth of a child at the end of the seven month who would be capable of killing the Dark Lord after the Dark Lord accidentally made him his equal. Dumbledore was shocked enough in that moment to give Sybill her the position she had been after.

Unbeknownst to them, sitting in a dark corner of that very room had been Severus Snape, listening in to the conversation in secret. Severus, a Death Eater, took the knowledge immediately to Lord Voldemort.

Voldemort was concerned enough by the prophecy that he had Peter Pettigrew, Barty Crouch Jr., and Augustus Rockwood research and determine anyone who was due to have a child in last half of July. It took almost two months to get the information together, and there were a handful that were due in the last couple of weeks. It did not include the possibility of a muggle born child as unfortunately there would be far too many to take care of when those were considered.

Among the list of almost a dozen name of female witches that were due to have a child in that time period, two stood out more than others as they were both members of the Order of the Phoenix. Those two were Alice Longbottom and Lily Potter.

So, in late March, Voldemort sent a Death Eater after each of the other nine names even though he was – for the most part – unconcerned with the other nine. He knew that Severus would balk at the idea of killing Lily and so he sent Severus along with with Rodolphus to deal with Alice Longbottom while he sent Bellatrix to handle Lily Potter.

In spite of Voldemort's careful planning, Severus still balked and couldn't follow through with killing Alice, fleeing the scene. Sadly, the same couldn't be said for Rodolphus who struck Alice and Frank down in two swift blows, though Frank's death was unnecessary.

Meanwhile, in a small house, Bellatrix struck down Lily – who had been in her kitchen getting a midnight snack – in a single blow.

As this happened, unknown to everyone, in the Hall of Prophecy at the Ministry of Magic, a single brightly lit prophecy ball with a tag attached to it that had the names Harry Potter and Tom Riddle written on it cracked and shattered.

Back at the little house, James woke up immediately and raced out of his room to discover what had happened. Bellatrix contemplated killing him as well, but after a quick look at the utter devastation and grief on his face, she apparated away, cackling as she did so. For James, he tried over a dozen spells to resurrect his wife, but nothing worked as it was the one limitation that wizards had. One could not bring back the truly dead. After all his attempts had failed, James, in the depths of his grief – chose to die as well.

In the years that would follow, people would look back on that time and some would call it the March Slaughter while others would call it the Slaughter of Hope.

As those years passed, with the Dark Lord and the Death Eaters ever going stronger, many died in the battles that followed. Among the dead were Severus Snape, Andromeda Black, Nymphodora Tonks, Argus Filch, Remus Lupin, Minerva McGonagall, Arthur and Molly Weasley, and many others. Of course, the losses were not only on the side of good – some Death Eaters lost their lives as well, including Peter Pettigrew, Rodolphus Lestrange and the entire Malfoy family with the exception of Draco.

Hogwarts was overtaken a mere decade after the March Slaughter, and the Ministry of Magics a scant year after that. By 1993, the wizarding world was under the complete control of the Dark Lord.

For the resistance that remained – led by Dumbledore, Hagrid and Sirius Black – hiding in the human world was about the only option available. The vast majority of the survivors and resistance were actually children and young teens as many of the adults – seen as possible threats by Voldemort – had been killed.

A small school and refuge was created in secret for the resistance on a farmhouse outside of London. Among the people that ended up there were the orphaned Weasleys, Seamus Finnigan, Cho Chang, Lavender Brown, Colin and Dennis Creevey, Angelina Johnson, Luna Lovegood and quite a few others. There were no branches in this small school, but still, as the students studied with the handful of adults available to teach them, the Sorting Hat – that had somehow managed to escape Hogwarts – would grumble to himself that so and so belonged in one house or another.

One of the most surprising students to show, didn't actually join them until 1995, after Voldemort made an official proclamation that all mudbloods were to be killed. Hermione Granger was brought to the small farm after she was found hiding in an alley by Sirius Black some weeks after her parents had been killed in an attempt by Bellatrix to kill her.

Most of students sympathized with Hermione's pain as many of the kids had lost their parents in their early years of childhood. In the case of the Weasleys, neither Ron nor Ginny could remember their parents, while the twins, Fred and George, could only bring up the vaguest of images. The older Weasley brothers – Bill, Charles, and Percy – all deeply missed their parents.

And yet, in spite of the loss and pain that suffused the individuals, the small refuge was a home. And, as a whole, many found the occasional moment of happiness, of fleeting freedom, and of general joy.

For Sybill Trelawney, one of the educators to the children at this small refuge, it was often as if the world no longer had meaning to her. For, you see, when the March Slaughter happened, it was as if a dam had broken in her mind. She now had many visions, some that came true, and others that didn't – but she had learned after what happened as a result of her first real prophecy, and so she never told anyone of the things she saw.

It was because of the fact that she kept her prophecies a secret that no one in the resistance was aware of the fact that back in 1983 Bellatrix gave birth to a daughter of Voldemort's named Delphini. Officially, Delphini was listed as Bellatrix and Barty's daughter. There were many reasons that Voldemort did not admit to having an heir, but most would assume the main reason was that if anyone ever realized he had a child then they would think he had a weakness. It wasn't true, of course, Voldemort was the _Dark Lord_ , a god amongst the wizarding world that remained and bowed to his every whim. The reality was, the main reason no one knew he had a daughter was because he didn't care about her as anything more than another Death Eater whose sole purpose was to obey him.

As Delphini aged, she found a companionship in the orphaned Draco Malfoy. When they were kids, they were as close to sister/brother as they could get without being actual siblings, and as the years passed, it became something more. Though, as they were first cousins, it never became anything physical.

Back in the small refuge the resistance hid in, Hermione was trying hard to find a way to defeat both Voldemort and Bellatrix. Unfortunately, the books that had managed to make it from the different wizards houses and been smuggled from other places in the wizarding world were very limited. Still, Hermione was obsessed in finding a way to defeat the Death Eaters.

It wasn't her though, that made the first serious strike.

Instead, it was another of the students, Cedric Diggory, who made the first blow. Dumbledore, loathe though he was to involve any of the children and teens that looked to him for protection, had slowly started to bring some of the older ones into the fighting so that there would be hope for future generations. It was in this light that in late 1998, Cedric, along with Fred, George, and Lavender, snuck into Hogwarts to smuggle out books from the restricted section of the library.

All four of them had known the risks involved with trying such a dangerous stunt, but they went anyways. They'd all lost loved ones, and for them, it was of utmost importance to do _something._ They made it into the library with ease, but once they were there, things went awry.

Voldemort had set wards on the library at Hogwarts many years prior and had known immediately when they'd entered. He dispatched Bellatrix, Barty, and Avery Sr to take care of the problem. Bellatrix, slightly insane and more than a little willing for a fight, attacked and killed the girl, Lavender, upon first spotting her.

Cedric quickly convinced Fred and George to take what they'd so far grabbed and leave while he himself stayed and fought with the Death Eaters in order to distract them. Cedric managed to successfully use the killing curse on Bellatrix as the Weasley twins fled and apparated away from the school.

Then, stuck alone in the library with two Death Eaters, Cedric tried to fight his way to freedom, but as he managed to kill Barty, Avery struck him down.

Among the books that the twins managed to take back was none other than Tom Riddle's diary. It took time to discover the book for what it was. To Hermione, it was nothing more than a blank book, but the book eventually spoke to Ginny. After that, it was able to be destroyed by the Sword of Gryffindor – which appeared of it's own free will to Ron.

It was after that, that the revelation of the horcruxes came out. It gave the different people in the resistance a goal of what to seek out. Ron and Hermione went together to hunt down Salazar Slythein's Locket, while Ginny and Colin sought out Morvolo Gaunt's Ring, Fred and George were sent after Helga Hufflepuff's Cup, Luna headed off after Rowena Ravenclaw's Diadem, and Sirius was charged with the arduous task of procuring the sixth horcrux – the knife of Bellatrix Lestrange.

The seventh, and final horcrux, was Voldemort's pet Nagini. It would be the hardest to get to, and so, the focus was solely on the others. Ron and Hermione were the first to successfully hunt down and destroy theirs, followed by Fred and George.

Colin and Ginny had far less success in destroying theirs. They found the ring relatively easy, but their attempts to destroy it initially backfired, so as they tried to figure out how to destroy it, Ginny took to wearing it in order to keep from losing it. She became deathly ill shortly after she started wearing it but neither her nor Colin realized why. She was too sick to even apparate back to the refuge. It was as they tried to return on foot, in a strange hallucination, that she found a way to destroy the ring. The crazy idea she came up with worked to destroy the horcrux but the curse inside the ring had spread too far by then and she never made it back to the refuge.

Luna and Sirius both managed to find and destroy the items they were after, before returning to the refuge in early 2002.

The remaining Weasleys were all heartbroken by the loss of their only sister, but there was no time to grieve. Ron and Hermione, who had slowly grown extremely close in their hunt for the horcrux, quietly got married, with no one but Hagrid and the spirits of the dead as a witness. There was no honeymoon for the young couple though, as the resistance set off the next morning to go after the Nagini and Voldemort.

The battle to get to Voldemort proved to be the most dangerous part of the journey. Seamus and Colin both fell at the hands of Death Eaters along with teachers Aurora Sinistra and Pomona Sprout, as well as an ally centaur named Firenze.

Hermione finally managed to get her revenge when she buried the Sword of Gryffindor into the Nagini.

After that, Dumbledore prepared to face off against Voldemort, but everyone – especially the Dark Lord himself – was shocked when Delphini stepped forward and used the killing curse on her own father. After Voldemort fell Draco quickly moved grabbed the man's wand before apparating away at the same moment as Delphini.

After that, the wizarding world slowly started to rebuild. Luna ended up marrying Fred on the same day that George married Angelina while Charles moved to Romania to study dragons. Dumbledore returned to being the headmaster of Hogwarts, while Alistor Moody started to whip the Ministry of Magic into shape. Sirius became the defense against the Dark Arts teacher and Hagrids the Potions teacher. Some witches and wizards moved away from the wizarding world permanently while others took over forgotten businesses...

As for Sybill, she retired from divination shortly after Hogwarts was officially reopened, for she remembered her first prophecy and she couldn't help but wonder how much less damaged the world would be if she had never officially foretold it. Sadly though, she was the only one that remembered what she had originally foreseen, and she was the only one who ever thought of the boy who never was.

* * *

 **AN:** That ends this tale for me. I am sure there are several people who have their pitchforks at the ready over this. I know I killed off some favorites and let others live that originally died. I also know, that while I'm not the first to write a story where Potter was killed, I'm not sure if anyone has wrote a one-shot or short quite like this. As for Delphini, since in this tale, Voldemort never died, I changed when she was born.

As this is a one-shot, I will leave it with this, if anyone was inspired by this and wanted to either make a full length story around the events in this story or after the events then please feel free to, just let me know and give me credit for the inspiration.


End file.
